Brush The Dirt Off And Get Back On

I'm a do-it-yourself kind of girl. If I can, I will. I've mentioned before how much pride and accomplishment I get from getting through it and learning from it.

My throbbing shoulder this morning trying to pick-up my youngest kids to change, put in the car, etc... told do-it-yourself girl to shove it.

I've had a lot of folks offering theory and all I can say at the end of yesterday is talking theory and being able to implement it when the animal doesn't respond the way that is predicted in the theory, well, that's a whole other apple.

Whisper responded to a martingale the way she has any other tool to date. First time out, magic. After that, no change whatsoever.

Last night was one lap at a walk, then every two steps she would break into a trot, half halts be damned. Quickly this escalates into the most controlled canter you've ever seen as I am trying to slow my horse back down to a walk and she keeps changing the gait up. I give and take, she fights to run. I pull back, she leans in and accomplishes the run. Her chin is pressed back into her neck and she's running. I can feel the tension radiating through her like an angry bee. We hit the fence and she stops. I ask for a calm walk and she burst with speed again, onto a circle to slow her and she collects for half the circle and runs the other half over and over until she opposes the rein pressure to turn and she rears, at an angle. My weight was back in an attempt to slow her and I came off.

She ran. I caught her and put her on the longe line. She collected immediately into the prettiest, calmest walk you've ever seen. I got back on and she started snorting, tail swishing, and the full run was immediate. I got off and put her up. I should have longed her at that point, letting her know that not working with me meant more work for her, but I couldn't get out of my head long enough to focus and my shoulder hurt. I felt defeated and angry, two places you don't want to be when you are training.

I made a decision then to have her evaluated by a trainer as soon as possible.

I contacted a renowned OTTB trainer with tons of experience who often gives OTTB owners helpful advice and gave the trainer the rundown of what I've done to this point and what behaviors I'm looking to change, about 2 pages worth of info. The trainer wrote me back a one line e-mail, "Can you send the horse back where it came from?" I answered, "Yes". "Send it back."

crap.

I contacted a friend who worked with previously mentioned trainer and she offered to come out and teach me some massage and stretches to make Whisper more comfortable so we could be sure that discomfort wasn't adding to the problem. She also reminded me that Whisper is still not long off track, going through a change of seasons, and a mare. We went through a list of what Whisper can do now that she couldn't a few months ago such as standing in cross ties at the wash rack while I clean her stall.

Next I lined up an evaluation session with the trainer at my barn. I'm most interested to know what my handling is doing to contribute to the problem vs what Whisper has in her head that is contributing to the problem. Having someone with excellent and varied handling skills should give me a clearer picture of where Whisper stands without me and how I can modify to better meet her needs.

I'm not giving up on her today. It's not about riding a horse, it's about loving THIS horse.